


A Long Way Home

by camsado



Category: Bandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Coming Out, Dysphoria, Falling In Love, M/M, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-02-21 16:59:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18706522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camsado/pseuds/camsado
Summary: Tyler is trans. This is the year where he figures it out, meets Josh along the way, and falls in love with him.





	1. Anathema

**Author's Note:**

> A few years ago, I started writing something called [what's behind my skull](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6147567/chapters/14085222#workskin), posted a few chapters on this website and then vanished to never update again. It was also mostly a way for me to project my own feelings and problems on a fiction. I don't think I remember why I freaked out the way I did and decided to disappear, and I don't know if any of the people reading this remember the original story, because it's been fucking forever, but here I am, I guess. Back at it again, rewriting this story, with lots of changes, and, I hope, significantly better english.
> 
> If there's even one single person that remembers me from back then: hi again, it's been a while. I hope you're doing fine. I know that story had made people happy at the time, and I hope that finding this made you smile. 
> 
> **Important note to avoid any confusion:** Tyler is trans in this fic, but it takes him a while to figure it out. Until he does, I'll be referring to him as "a girl" and using another name.
> 
>  **TW for the entire fic:** transphobia, internalized transphobia, gender dysphoria, suicidal thoughts, alcohol abuse, recreational drug use, graphic depictions of sex, sex while intoxicated.

The coffeeshop is quiet at that time of the day, always is ; two old ladies talking about their grandkids, a couple that looks too fancy for the place sharing a piece of pie, a bunch of students there and there, on their laptops, their coffee in hand and another on the keyboard. That's all there is. The playlist just switched to a Bee Gees song, kind of tacky and out of place, but somehow soothing over the noise that the coffee machine makes.

“There's this Poetry Night thing next week,” Jenna says. “The one that's organized by the lit students, you know?”

Anna puts her coffee down. Jenna is still holding hers close to her face, pastel blue painted fingers wrapped around the cup. She complained about her hands being cold, earlier.

“I know,” Anna says. “I actually am part of the lit students, in case you have forgotten?”

She says it like that because she knows why Jenna is telling her that, knows that Jenna knows she knows. She's heard the other students talk about it, got invited to the Facebook event, seen the posters in the hallways, hangs out with the girl that designed them. She _knows_ , and Jenna is fully aware of that.

“Alright, good,” Jenna says. “Go, then.”

“No,” Anna says, not waiting a single second before the word gets out. “Not gonna happen.”

Jenna sighs, but it's kind. She puts the coffee down, rests her head on her hand. “You really should, you know,” she says. “It's great, the things you write. I'm sure people would like it.”

She's thought about it, of course ; going. She's thought about going, about recording her poems and posting them on YouTube, turning them into lyrics that she'd turn into songs, find a stage to play on and sing.

It's too bad she hates her own fucking voice, really.

She's about to say something when she sees Lydia coming towards them and oh – the hair, that's new.

“Hey, gang,” Lydia says.

She sits next to Jenna, facing Anna.

“Jeez, Lydia, your hair!” Jenna exclaims.

Her previously dark brown hair has been dyed a faded blue and cut a little bit shorter than it was, making her look like some kind of princess. A vaguely punk looking princess. Even cooler.

“I love it,” Anna says as Jenna reaches to curl a strand of Lydia’s hair around her finger. It matches her nail polish, pastel meeting pastel.

“It suits you so well!” Jenna says. “Just warn me next time. I could like, not have recognized you and fallen in love, which would have been a catastrophe.”

“Oh, god, yeah,” Lydia says. “You and me, as a couple? That would be the end of the world.”

Anna hates herself a little bit more every time she catches herself being envious of Lydia, because they're not in highschool anymore and being jealous of other girls was already pathetic back then, but Lydia has just this way of not caring, and Anna can't comprehend how, but God, she wishes she could. She wishes she could dye her hair and not care, just not care. Cut it short and dye it, buzz it, get a tattoo on her forearm, get on stage and perform, write a song and sing it.

“I was telling Anna about the Poetry Night,” Jenna tells Lydia.

“Oh yeah, it's next week, right?” Lydia says. She stops as the waitress comes to take her order ; she takes a caramel latte and a waffle. “I was intending on going, actually,” she says then.

“Perfect,” Jenna says, smiling at Lydia and then at Anna. Anna knows that smile, and she doesn't like the implications of it. “Because I was trying to convince Anna to perform.”

Lydia looks at Anna, eyes suddenly bright. “Man, that'd be so cool!” she exclaims.

“Now that I know you're going, I'm definitely _not_ performing,” Anna sighs.

“Come on,” Lydia says. “It's not like I've never read your stuff.”

“You've never heard me say it,” Ana says. “It's not the same. Not in front of an audience. I'd look ridiculous.”

“You'd look great,” Jenna says.

“Just try it out,” Lydia says. “It's not high school anymore, people won't bully you over things like poetry or writing.”

“I've never being bullied over writing,” Ana says.

“You get my point,” Lydia says. “The point in question being that people are organizing this event for a reason, and I don't think a bunch of book nerds like you are gonna judge each other because they like writing stuff about their feelings. It's a pretty safe space for a good start, don't you think?”

And Lydia’s right. Anna knows she's right. She'd say that this isn't the problem, if she had it in her. She'd say that the problem wasn't the space being safe or not, it's herself.

But that sounds way too miserable, so she doesn't say it.

“Fine,” she says instead. “I'll think about it.”

That’s enough to make both Jenna and Lydia smile, and maybe Anna does smile a little bit, too.

Whatever. She’ll find a proper excuse not to go, if that’s what it takes.

 

★

 

She was intending to go to her American literature history class after her coffee with Jenna and Lydia, but she ends up ditching it in the end. While Jenna and Lydia leave to take care of their respective businesses, Anna stays in the coffeeshop, unable to go back home because her mom is there and will scold her for not attending her classes even though Anna’s almost nineteen, and feeling like shit.

She’s still replaying the conversation with Jenna and Lydia, and it’s dumb because it’s nothing, but she thinks _why wouldn’t I do it?_ and freaks out everytime she thinks about the _why_. She hates her voice, can’t stand it, can’t go on stage looking and sounding like this. Plenty of people don’t find themselves attractive and manage to live their lives anyway, but it’s not that simple for her, she doesn’t know why and she doesn’t know if she wants to find out.

She spends a solid thirty minutes nervously scrolling through Twitter, then Instagram, then Twitter again before texting Brendon. Maybe he could take her mind off of those things. He almost always manages to do so.

_You: Are you doing anything right now?_

It’s not the first time she texts him during that kind of crisis. The last time was two weeks ago. She’d spent ten minutes looking at her naked reflection in the mirror, freaking out more and more second after second, before asking him if she could sleep at his place that night. He’d said yes. It was a little bit better afterwards, but the feeling still lingered.

Her phone buzzes.

_Bren: just woke up. want to come over?_

Anna sighs. A little bit of it is relief, because at least she knows she doesn’t have to get through this day alone, now, but it’s mostly exhaustion.

_You: be there in 20._

 

★

 

Brendon rolls her on her back as they move together, thrusting hard and fast inside of Anna, panting against her shoulder. He always ends up doing that whenever Anna rides him ; let her have control until he can’t anymore, then bend her over and fuck her relentlessly.

She’d had sex with two guys before Brendon. One was plain bad, the other decent.

Brendon is good. He’s really good.

She gasps as he hits that spot inside of her, moans when he rubs her clit with wet fingers, his other hand pulling on her hair and oh, _oh_.

She comes loud and bright before she can anticipate it, doesn’t hear herself as she probably whines when Brendon doesn’t pull out, keeps fucking her, keeps stroking her. His hand is still in his hair like a death grip, and when she gets down from her high, she can tell by looking at his face that he’s close, too, but he’s holding back. His thumb is still rubbing her, and it’s so sensitive, it’s so much, and Anna moans a little bit too loud then he moves his finger just right but it’s too much, too much, and she reaches to take his wrist, because there’s no way she can come a third time, not after that.

“Let me,” Brendon pants. He keeps doing that thing with his hand as he fucks her, slow and deep now, and she can feel every inch as she feels pleasure building again.

Brendon manages to make her come after long, long minutes that Anna hasn’t counted, and it’s so intense, so strong that she can’t move anymore, can’t do anything but let him thrust into her a couple more times, letting himself go at last and emptying himself in the condom with a loud groan. He keeps bucking his hips for a while, slower, slower, then stops.

Anna still hasn’t recovered her breath even as he’s lying motionless in top of her. He moves a little bit to be more comfortable at some point. She gasps when he does, because she’s still so sensitive and his cock is still inside of her.

She laughs a breathless laugh. “How do you keep getting better at this?” she asks.

Brendon laughs, too. He lifts his head up and let it rest on his shoulder, looking at her. He looks good, post-sex. He looks good a lot of the time. Anna could date him if she was in love with him, or even if she wasn’t, but none of them wants that, and this is fun too. They’re good friends and they like fucking each other. It doesn’t need to go further than that.

“I don’t know, it’s been a few times now,” Brendon says, rightfully so. Anna hasn’t been counting, but they’ve been seeing each other a quite a lot these last months, and at least half ot the times they hang out end up with sex, when it doesn’t _start_ that way. “I guess I’m starting to know what you like.”

He lazily strokes her stomach, rests his fingers where her pubes start. Nothing teasing, more tender than anything else. She couldn’t go for another round anyway, not after three fucking orgasms.

Anna kisses him. He tastes like sweat and smoke. They stay like that for a while, making out lazily as they both try to come down, to regain a little bit of strength. It’s only mid-afternoon and they both have shit to do.

Anna moans a little bit when Brendon pulls out, and he laughs as he gets his cigarette pack on the nightstand. For a while, Anna just lays there, naked and content, as Brendon puts on some music, opens the window and lights his cigarette. She doesn’t speak until he’s halfway through his smoke.

“My friends want me to go to that Poetry Night,” she says.

Brendon turns at her. He had been looking through the window until now. “Oh, that’s nice,” he says. “You like poetry, right? You should go.”

“No, I mean they want me to perform,” Anna says.

“Oh,” Brendon says. “Well. Why wouldn’t you?”

Anna laughs. “There’s a thousand reasons why I wouldn’t,” Anna says. Brendon waits for her to explain, so she does. “There’ll be people I know. From college. And I don’t want them to hear what I write, because it’s personal, and they’re gonna be able to see right through me, you know? And I don’t know, I don’t think what I write is worth telling an audience anyway. Who wants to know about how miserable I tend to feel when I’m alone?”

“Isn’t that the whole point of poetry?” Brendon asks, smiling but it’s genuine.

He’s got a point, though. “I don’t know,” Anna says again. “It’s too personal. It’s not like I haven’t thought about sharing what I do, like, online or whatever, but - I don’t know. I’m not gonna go anyway.”

“Then why are you telling me about it?”

Anna closes her eyes. She’s still relaxed. She shouldn’t be worrying herself with this. She wouldn’t if she didn’t care. She can’t fool herself into thinking that she doesn’t. She can’t even fool Brendon.

“I don’t know,” she says. There’s a lot of things she doesn’t know, these days.

“Just go,” Brendon says. “I’ll hold your hand.”

Anna laughs. “Please don’t do that.”

Brendon smiles as he crushes the butt of his cigarette in the ashtray on the windowsill. “Go,” he says. “It’d be cool.”

Anna stretches her arms above her head, moves her body under the cover she’s pulled on herself. She’s wet between her legs, and it’s starting to feel gross. She should probably take a shower here before going back at her parents’ house.

“Maybe I’ll go,” she says.

 

★

 

The small crowd gives a round of applause for the guy who just performed. They’re about to announce the next performer.

The next performer is Anna.

God, she should never have agreed to do this.

The last guy, Patrick, was very good, and she doesn’t know if she can go there and say her own words after that, or any time, really. It was a shitty idea, she’ll never listen to Lydia or Jenna or Brendon again, she -

“The next performer is called Anna Joseph,” the guy on stage says.

That’s her. That’s her, Anna Joseph, right, that’s her.

She looks behind her. There’s a curtain hiding her and the others performers who have yet to go on stage, and behind them, a door. That’s all it would take, really. She could turn around, open that door and vanish. Nobody would care. They’d just pass the mic to someone else. It’s not a big deal. It’s just a little open mic in a little college.

She closes her eyes, breathes in, breathes out.

The door. That’s all it would take.

But Lydia and Jenna and Brendon came for her, and that would make them sad, wouldn’t it? There’s no turning back now.

 _Shit_.

She opens her eyes and starts walking towards the center of the stage. Her legs are shaking. Hopefully no one can see that, just as they can’t see her hands sweating or feel her heart racing. The audience gives a small round of applause, and soon, her eyes find her friends, at the second row. She just has time to catch Jenna lifting her two thumbs at her and mouthing _you can do it_ before she looks in another direction, remembering what her theater teacher from middle school had taught them and looking right above the crowd.

She breathes in.

“This poem is called Car Radio,” she says.

Then she speaks.

 

★

 

“You were _amazing_!” Lydia exclaims as soon as she catches Anna after the show. She hugs her, scratches the top of her head affectionately, and that makes Anna relax a little. Her whole body still seems to be buzzing, though, even after the last more performances that followed hers.

“Thanks,” she simply says, and hopes Lydia gets it, that she’s not only thanking her for the compliment, but also for forcing her to do this. She’ll have to thank Jenna and Brendon too, later.

She knew it from theater class, that she liked being on stage, but it’s another thing to say the words you wrote, to be yourself in front of people instead of playing a character. It’s another thing, and it’s fucking terrifying, but God, _God_ , it was so worth it.

“I have to agree,” Jenna says, placing a gentle hand on Anna’s shoulder when Lydia let’s go of her, then pulling her into her arms, too. “That was great. You did great.”

Brendon is standing a little bit further, and Anna smiles back at him from where she is, head resting on Jenna’s shoulder.

“I’m going out for a cig,” Lydia says, putting on her large yellow coat and getting her pack out of the pocket.

“I’m coming with you,” the guy behind her says. He wasn’t here before, probably just came back from the bathroom or something, but Anna thinks she saw him sitting next to Lydia in the crowd, before she started speaking.

“Oh, no,” Lydia tells him. “Don’t tell me you’ve started smoking.”

“Only sometimes,” the guy says, and he shrugs.

“That’s it,” Lydia says dramatically. “I’ve corrupted you. I’m gonna go to _hell_.”

Anna laughs. “I’m coming too,” she says, and before Lydia can say anything, she adds, “I still don’t smoke and I won’t, no, I just need some fresh air.” And it’s true. She still feels like she’s boiling, even though it’s already cold outside and the room is barely properly heated to the point she saw several people wearing their coats during the performance.

“Let me just get my coat,” she says. “I’ll join you.”

“Alright,” Lydia says, and then heads out with, her friend following her. Jenna says something about grabbing a hot drink at the cafeteria and joining after.

Brendon, however, walks with Anna towards the changing room where she left her stuff.

“So,” he says. “I didn’t know you were an actual _writer_.”

“Oh, shut up,” Anna says.

Brendon smiles. “No, I mean it,” he says. “All these kids were very talented, and they all had something, but you? I know a lot of people who write, but not with such - force. You’re something else.”

Anna doesn’t know what to say to that. “Thanks,” is what comes first, but she really doesn’t know what _else_ to say. She knows she’s a decent writer, sure, she knows how to arrange words in a certain way so they hit hard. But she doesn’t think she’s something else. She often wishes she was.

“You staying?” she asks Brendon as she puts her black coat on. They get back outside as soon as she’s made sure she has all her stuff, backpack, phone, car keys.

“Nah,” Brendon says. “I have this party tonight. Told Jon I’d go even if it was late.” He gets out a cigarette pack when they get outside, lights it. Anna sees Lydia and her friend talking a little bit further, Lydia’s yellow coat and blue hair recognizable even under a shitty light in the night. “Wanna come?” Brendon offers.

“Nah, thanks,” Anna says. “I’m probably gonna hang out here for like, half a hour and then get back to my house and sleep. This was fucking exhausting.”

“I bet it was,” Brendon says.

“Sorry you couldn’t go to your party earlier,” Anna says.

“Shut the fuck up,” Brendon says. “It was great seeing you on stage.” He pauses as they’re getting closer to Lydia and the other guy. “I meant what I said,” Brendon says. “Okay? I really mean it. You were great.”

“Thanks,” Anna says again.

Brendon leans over to kiss her forehead, stroking her hair with the hand that’s not holding his cigarette. “You need to do more of that stuff,” he says. “The world needs to know.”

Anna chuckles. It’s nervous. “Sure,” she says. “The world.”

The stop when they arrive at Lydia and her friend’s level. Brendon lifts his hand as a goodbye.

“Well, it was great meeting you, guys,” he says. “Say bye to Jenna for me. Duty calls.”

“Is getting drunk until you puke your own brains out a duty?” Anna says.

“Yes it is,” Brendon shoots back as he’s walking away backwards. “Have a good night!” he says louder.

“Please don’t drive drunk and die!” Anna shouts.

“Yes, officer!” Brendon yells back, and then he’s gone.

Lydia looks at Anna with soft eyes. Her cigarette is almost all burnt out when she takes a drag. “He’s cool,” Lydia says, smiling. Anna sort of knew they would get along well, because Brendon, Lydia and Jenna are all nice, sociable people unlike her. Of course Jenna and Lydia like Brendon, he’s who he his, and he’s likeable ; it just felt weird introducing him as a friend to her two other friends while they knew she was having sex with him.

And it’s funny, because while that’s true, that they’re friends, Brendon and Anna didn’t use to be back then. Acquaintances, sure. They’d had an assignment together and Anna had to go at his house to work on it and she had thought he was cool, and they would say hi to each other in class, but that was it. She wasn’t friends with Brendon, let alone his friends, and the girls she used to hang out with almost all moved outside of the state, and neither them or Anna bothered to do more than send a couple of texts every two months until they didn’t, at all. Brendon had just texted her for no real reason, and they’d ended up hanging out together a couple of times before hooking up, deciding it was just a casual thing and then doing it again and again.

“Jeez, it’s fucking cold,” Lydia says, exaggerating a shiver. Her boyfriend jeans are ripped, and there’s nothing to protect the skin but fishnets under. “A whole ass year in Ohio and I still haven’t gotten used to it.”

“Typical Cali Girl,” Anna says, rolling her eyes. “It’s not even _that_ cold. You guys just can’t handle shit.”

“Well, blame it on us having not knowing what an actual weather is,” Lydia says. Her attention then gets caught somewhere else. “Oh, hey, Gen!” She then runs towards a ginger, curly-haired girl that Anna has seen at Lydia’s parties once or twice. She recalls her telling Anna she was in Lydia’s class.

That leaves Anna with Lydia’s friend, still smoking his cigarette.

“I’m Josh, by the way,” he says. He has a nice face, kind and warm-looking. The light isn’t much but Anna is close enough to see freckles on his skin and a nose piercing shining when he moves to take a drag. He has soft looking eyes, but she can’t see the color because it’s too dark. His dark hair curls on his temples ; Anna wonders if hers would do that too, were she to cut it short.

“Anna,” she says.

“Yeah, I know that,” Josh says, smiling.

Anna laughs softly. “Yeah, of course,” she says. Of course he knows. She hates the name a little bit more everytime someone new hears it. “I like your shirt.”

It’s a Nasa tee, covered only by a camo jacket ; Josh must be cold. Unless he’s one of those guys who radiate heat at any point of the year. Brendon is like that. Always warm, going out with only a leather jacket and being fine with it when Anna’s shivering in her big coat.

“Ah, thanks,” Josh says. “I didn’t get to tell you inside, by the way, but your performance was amazing.”

“Oh,” Anna says. “Thank you.”

“Did it really happen?”

“What?”

“The story. About the car radio. Did someone steal it for real?”

“Ah, yeah.”

“That sucks.”

Josh smokes like someone who isn’t really used to it. Not that Anna knows about that, but Brendon and Lydia both smoke a _lot_ , so she got used to the sight.

“Honestly, that sucks more for whoever stole it than from me,” Anna says, shrugging, her hands in the pockets of her coat. “That radio was a piece of crap.”

Josh laughs. That’s good, that it makes him laugh. Anna just performed one of her most personal lyrics, talked about her thoughts sounding too loud in the silence of a car, felt raw and naked while doing it but it was okay. If she talks about it afterwards, though, it makes it real, and she’s not sure she’s up to that kind of a conversation now.

“It was dope,” Josh says. “Real. It hit home.”

And that’s all he says. Anna doesn’t have to talk about it. She feels like maybe she should, but Josh doesn’t give her that impression. So she doesn’t.

“Lydia told me you were in English?” Josh asks. He’s almost at the end of his cigarette.

“Yeah,” Anna says. “You’re in her class?”

She’s pretty sure she knows the answer ; Lydia is doing Art History, and Anna hasn’t seen every single person in her class, sure, but her and Josh seem to be good friends, and she’s pretty sure she would have seen Josh at least once if that was the case.

“Nah,” he says. He takes one last drag before crushing the butt on the trashcan next to him and throwing it in it when it’s lit down. “I’m not studying, actually. I’ve been working at Guitar Center for almost a year now.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Anna says. “You play music yourself?”

“Drums,” Josh says. “You?”

“Piano, a little bit of guitar, and I’m getting around ukulele. It’s kind of easy to learn, though.”

Josh smiles. “That’s cool,” he says. “We complete each other. The two of us could be a band.”

It’s a joke, of course it is, but it’s not like Anna hasn’t thought about dropping out and finding someone to play music with, it’s not like she hasn’t thought about names for a band, titles for an album, like she hasn’t been thinking about this non-stop for the past years. She wishes she could do all that. It’s kind of sad that she can’t bring herself to try to make music, really make music, when it’s all she has. Maybe she could, with the right voice. She doesn’t know what other people have in themselves that she hasn’t ; how do you stop hating your own face and voice enough to go on a stage and sing?

She laughs. “We could, yeah,” she says.

“Hey, sorry about that,” Lydia’s voice says from behind Anna. “I had to ask her about an assignment we have. Real pain in the ass. The assignment, not the girl.”

“I figured,” Anna says. “She looks too… your type to be a pain in the ass.”

“Oh, come on,” Lydia scoffs. “I don’t hit on any pretty girl I see. Otherwise I’d be hitting on you and Jenna all the time.”

“Smooth move, Night.”

“Let’s get back inside, shall we?” Lydia says, rubbing her arms with her hands. “Now that we’re all done. It’s fucking freezing.”

Once they’re inside, Anna is finally able to see the color of Josh’s eyes. They’re a warm brown, not as dark as hers, full of light, and she spends the rest of the time she stays there looking when he’s not.

 

★

 

It’s not easy to have some alone time at the Joseph house. It can’t be when you have three siblings that are younger than you and your mother is a housewife.

So today is special, kind of. Anna’s parents have gone to their monthly restaurant date, Zack is out with his girlfriend (an actual girlfriend, and Anna still can’t wrap her mind around the fact that her little brother is in a serious relationship), Maddie is sleeping at a friend’s and Jay is at a party.

So Anna is alone.

Honestly, it’s a shame that she hasn’t _planned_ anything to enjoy that freedom as much as possible. Not that she really needs to ; she’ll probably get down in the basement and sing as loud as possible, not being worried, for once, that everyone will hear what she has to say. She could even just put some good music really loud and sing along, pretend her mind is not racing all the time for an hour or two, until her parents get back anyway.

She does none of that.

As soon as her parents are out of the house, she climbs the stairs and goes straight to her room. She feels tired, so tired, for no reason ; and it’s not like she’s not used to it, not like she hasn’t been tired for the past couple of years or more. She catches her reflection in her big mirror next to her bed, and it doesn’t feel like hers. But it is, and it makes her feel sick.

She approaches the mirror, examines her face. She pulls her hair back in a ponytail, wondering how she would look with it all shaved. The result just looks like a ponytail, but even with no hair, she still wouldn’t look like a man. Her chest is hidden by a big sweater that used to be Zack’s but that’s not too small for him because his shoulders have broadened, even if he’s still a little bit smaller than Anna, probably always will be. She’s pretty tall, for a girl, and you can’t see her chest right now, and she could buzz her head, but her shoulders won’t get larger than this. This is all she’s gonna get. And she’ll never look like a man.

Somehow, it’s a bad thing. Somehow, it makes Anna want to punch herself in the face.

She punches the mirror instead.

Her hand looks blurry to her own eyes. Only a tiny bit of blood gets out, almost nothing, and it’s unsatisfying, because she should have felt more pain than that. She only realizes what she’s done when she looks at her feet, the pieces of glass everywhere. Shit.

 _Shit_.

She wipes her hand on the sweatpants she’s wearing, carefully steps out of the pieces of glass, avoiding them so she doesn’t hurt her bare feet.

Then she gets into her bed and cries until her parents come back.

 

★

 

Her mom helps her clean the mess the morning after.

“You know what they say,” she says. “Seven years of bad luck,” she jokes. “How did you even manage that?”

Anna shrugs. “I wanted to move it, but it fell,” she says.

She’s a shitty liar, but her mom buys it. The tiny scrape on her knuckle is barely visible and doesn’t raise any questions.

 

★

 

“Almost done,” Jenna says as she’s moving the liner on Anna’s skin. “Just a bit there, and there… And done!”

She puts the liner down, examining her work, then smiles.

“You are _stunning_ ,” she says. “Jeez, I’m so proud of myself. Look.”

She holds up the tiny mirror she keeps in her make-up bag for Anna to see herself. Her face is covered in black and white to look like a crane, Rick Genest style. It looks fucking creepy.

“I look dead,” she says. “In a good way.”

“You’ll be the _prettiest_ in this party.”

That’s not true, of course, because Jenna will be there and Jenna is prettier than most people, even with fake blood smashed all over her face, hair and ripped clothes, eve, with a zombie make-up that’s probably going to terrify everyone in their way but hey, it’s Halloween.

As they walk downstairs to get to Jenna’s car, Anna sees herself in the mirror hanging in the hall. She hasn’t gotten a new one since she broke hers last week, and has been avoiding every reflexion of her whole body. Just her face is fine, and she needs to get herself to look like something in the mornings anyway, but the whole thing is avoidable, so she just looks away whenever she’s walking in front of a glass.

Now, as she waits for Jenna to lace her Converse, she sees herself standing in her black dress, black thighs with bone prints on it and Dr Martens, with that skull drawn over her face, and it feels like she’s watching a stranger.

At least she can blame it on the make-up. At least she’s not herself. It makes the reflection a little bit easier to watch.

 

★

 

Six hours later, Anna finds herself drunk locked in the bathroom of Lydia’s apartment with a guy she doesn’t think she remembers the name of. Alexander, or Alan, or who cares, really. He smells like paprika chips and beer, and more than once, Anna catches herself wishing that Brendon had been at this party. At least the sex would have been good.

It’s not bad as it is, but barely decent. The guy has a nice dick and pounds her hard like she needs it, but he fucks selfishly like most guys do. He finishes early, emptying himself inside the condom, humping Anna a few last times, his hands spread on her ass. Then he slips out, says something she doesn’t register, still panting although she hasn’t come and doesn’t even know if she wants to, zips his pants up and gets out of the bathroom.

Anna locks the door again once he’s back to the party, and sits on the toilet, her head resting in her hands. Shit, her make-up is probably ruined now. Everyone complimented her on it, but it was all Jenna’s work, really. Anna feels like shit for wrecking it.

When she lifts her head up, she sees her face in the mirror in front of her. Like she thought, a part of the make-up’s gone. Her face shows under the layers.

God, she hates it, her face. God, she wishes she was someone else.

It would have been easier if she had been born a guy. She’d repress that thought if she was sober, wouldn’t even let herself have it in the first place. Drunk, she can even allow herself to be disgusting. Beer, tequila, vodka and whatever else she had have done her job well tonight.

 

★

 

Someone is holding her hair.

She doesn’t know when or why or how she unlocked the bathroom door, but someone’s there, definitely ; someone that smells way better than her, if she trusts her senses. Which she probably doesn’t, knowing she’s mostly smelling her own vomit right now and that she is drunk out of her mind.

It’s good that she’s throwing up, she thinks. Maybe it will clean her. Maybe she will vomit all the dirty, bad parts too. Maybe she’ll wake up tomorrow and feel normal again.

As if that ever was the case.

The Someone holds her up once she stops. She can’t see their face ; her vision is blurry, her eyes barely open. She’s crying, she thinks. Sobbing. God, how miserable.

She lets her face being wiped, hearing words that she doesn’t understand, and then falls asleep on the Someone’s shoulder.


	2. Crystal Clear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two is there, and, surprisingly, on time! Almost. I am writing chapter after chapter as I go, but I also happen to be planning them beforehand and I'm like, almost done with that part, so you should be able to know how many are left by next week, when I upload chapter three.
> 
> Big thank you to everyone who commented the last chapter. It doesn't seem like much, but I honestly didn't think people would have remembered this dumb little fic. I hope that you like this update, and please, tell me what you think.

The first thing Anna notices when she wakes up is that the sheets don't smell like hers. She also realizes, then, when she actually sits up, that she has a monstruous headache. Her brain feels heavy in her skull and her eyes hurt badly from being exposed to the morning light peeking through the curtains.

The party at Lydia's. Right. She's definitely not at Lydia's, though.

Anna looks around, trying to figure out where she is as memories come back to her. There's a big X-Files poster above the bed she's sitting on ; the famous one that says “I want to believe”. On the other wall, smaller posters, sometimes just the size of a postcard, of various bands, some that Anna recognizes, like Sum 41, The Offspring, Death Cab For Cutie or Green Day.

She stretches her legs under the covers, and her thighs feel sore when she does. That's when it comes back to her.

Shit. The guy in the bathroom. _Shit._ This must be his place. She doesn't remember anything from after they fucked. Except that she puked, and that someone was holding her hair ; it must have been him, certainly. It's good that she vomited, though. At least her head is hurting, but she doesn't have to vomit now.

She looks around some more, searching for clues, but it's pointless. The guy was a stranger she doesn't even remember the name of, and whatever she might find on the walls or on the floor of this room isn't gonna help her identify him. Except for if there was actual pictures of like, him and his friends somewhere. Which there isn't. Great. She just hopes he didn't take advantage of the fact that she was drunk out of her mind and probably half asleep to fuck her some more. Maybe he thought he had the right to since they'd had sex before. God, she hopes not.

She gets up and looks down. She's still wearing the black dress and the bone-printed thighs, now ripped at one knee. The make-up Jenna did must be smudged all over her face. She can't imagine what it must look like after she threw up. And she smells like shit, too. Great.

She breathes in. Breathes out. Alright. She just needs to get out of that room, find... whoever he is, and talk to him. Ask him what happened, if they did something else when they got here, try very hard to trust him if his answer is “nothing”, then tell him it won't happen again and leave. Maybe try to wash her face before, because she definitely can't go back to her parent's looking like this.

Alright. Let's go.

She leaves the room and climbs down the stairs. This is a big house, and there are family pictures on the wall. Anna doesn't bother to look close ; she's not even sure she would recognize him on them. At least, the fact that this boy lives at his parents' reassure her a bit. If his mom or his little brother or something was there, he probably didn't take the risk of making any noise by having sex with her in his room.

It definitely smells like breakfast, too. Anna just hopes it's not the parents. It would be more embarassing for the guy than for her, but she doesn't need that right now. She already feels enough like shit to have a fifty years old look at her with disdain. They'd be right to do so, but still.

God, it does smell good. She's not going to have anything to eat here, because no way, no fucking way, but Jesus, she's hungry. The fact that she probably threw up each and every one of her yesterday meals doesn't help, and the smell doesn't either.

She's not gonna eat there. She's not, she's just gonna find the guy and talk to him and leave, that's all, and she's downstairs now. Thank God it's not anyone's parents here, but a young man, except -

It's Josh.

Josh, smilight bright with a frying pan in his hand.

“Hey,” he says. “Figured the smell would wake you up.”

It takes a few seconds to process the information.

She isn't at a stranger's. She's at Josh's.

This isn't what she prepared, but it's somehow worse. If she was at a random guy's place, she could have just vanished and never seen him again. But it's Josh, and she's already seen him once but he's a good friend of Lydia's and she wouldn't have minded to see him again after the Poetry Night, because he seemed nice and funny, but not like this, not with her standing in his parent's kitchen, looking like a disaster and smelling worse after getting shitfaced and gotten care of by him, apparently.

“I'm sorry,” she says. That's all she manages.

Josh's still smiling, and his expression turns more reassuring.

“Hey,” he says. “It's okay. Really. It happens to – overdo it, or whatever. I'm glad I could help.”

So that was probably him holding her hair in the toilets too.

“To be honest, I was kinda shitfaced myself,” Josh says. “Pete friends dropped us off. He lives a few streets away.”

“You didn't have to,” Anna says. “Take care of that – take care of me, I mean.”

“Don't worry,” Josh says. “It's really okay. It was gonna last a while longer and Lydia's place only has that much space in it, and I have a bed, so I figured it might be nicer to bring you here.”

“You didn't have to.”

“But I did, didn't I?”

Josh's face looks bright and warm. It makes Anna guts twist. Most of people aren't that kind.

“Thank you,” she says.

Josh flips a pancake. “You're welcome,” he says. “These should be ready in ten. You wanna take a shower meanwhile?”

“That would be great, actually,” Anna says. “I feel kinda gross. Probably look kinda gross too.”

“Bathroom is first door at your right when you climb the stairs,” Josh says. “Help yourself with a towel and some soap. And if you wanna change, you can take the red plaid shirt that's in my room – it's probably like, on the chair, I think, and you can take whatever jeans that are in the last drawer of my cupboard. They're all too small for me and I don't wear them anymore, so, you know, feel free.”

Really. It shouldn't be possible to be so nice.

“Thank you,” Anna says again.

“Stop thanking me and go take a shower, you gross piece of trash,” Josh says, grinning.

Anna laughs.

 

★

 

Her face is a wreck when she sees it in the mirror, as expected.

The warm water on her body feels good. She scrubs her skin as hard as she can, taking off the make up on her face and the filth wherever else. She scrubs her chest too, her hips.

Maybe these will go away too, if she scratches hard enough.

When she gets out, she wipes the condensation off the mirror. Her hair is wet and pulled back, and her face clean. It's somehow even worse to see.

She's herself again.

 

★

 

“This shirt looks better on you than it does on me,” Josh says.

Josh's plaid shirt is clearly too big on her, but she kind of feels good in it. It hides everything she wants to hide, makes her silhouette better, and it's comfy. The jeans, though, are too large for her hips, which makes sense even if they're too small for Josh, because Josh is _jacked_. She hadn't paid attention the first time she saw him, because it was dark and he was wearing a jacket, but he's in a tee and sweatpants that tightly hug his legs, and the guy's got some muscle.

The point is, Anna doesn't see how anything could look better on her than on him.

“Stop shitting me,” she says.

“I'm not shitting you,” Josh says, smiling but serious.

Anna sits down in front of a plate of pancake Josh puts on the table. It smells fucking delicious.

“It's good,” she says, because it tastes delicious too. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Josh says as he takes a bite in hiw own plate. He doesn't sit down, leaning on the kitchen counter instead, the way you do when you eat at your own place and are in a rush. Force of habit, probably.

“That's really fucking cliché,” Anna says. “Me waking up at your house, wearing your clothes, eating your food.”

Josh laughs softly. “Yeah,” he says. “It kinda looks like a bad rom-com. Except we didn't sleep together.”

Anna hadn't considered that, because Josh doesn't seem like that type of guy, but then she remembers she barely knows him, and she's relieved. It's his word, though, but she trusts him better than she would have the other guy. Again, Josh doesn't seem the type.

“To be honest,” she says, “I – I first thought I was at someone else's house. I kinda freaked out. Now that I think about it, I don't know why he would have taken me home, though.”

“Yeah, he kind of looked like an asshole to me,” Josh says. He must see Anna's “how do you know who I'm talking about” look, because he explains. “Jenna saw him getting out of the bathroom, and it was the only place you could be in since she hadn't found you anywhere, but she was on the brink of throwing up too, so I came into the bathroom to see how you were. You remember that?”

She remembers vomiting and a faceless person helping her. What a good second impression to give, huh. “Vaguely,” she says. “Can you – tell me what happened after? I don't mind if it's not pretty, I mean – I was into it with that dude at that moment, he didn't – abuse me or anything. So it's ok.”

Josh nods. “Yeah, so,” he says. “After that, Lydia was pissed at that guy because you were clearly too drunk, even if he was too, and then she threw him out. I think she didn't really knew him, that he was a friend of a friend's. He got super defensive and said that you had practically jumped on him, to which Lydia told him it didn't change anything because you were _drunk_ , and like, you just told me that you were into it so it's fine, you know, but he couldn't know you were at the moment, and also he clearly had less than you. He was far from sober, but _he_ didn't throw up right after, know what I mean?” He pauses a moment just to take a bite. “Then he started saying some nasty shit about you.”

Anna raises an eyebrow. “What nasty shit?” Josh looks at her skeptically. “You can tell me, don't worry. I'd rather know.”

Josh swallows his pancake. Anna's head still hurts and the suddent load of information seems necessary, but not pleasant, so she focuses on Josh's face and how the morning light lands on it. He's got what seems to be remnants of blue chalk in his hair. Anna thinks she remembers seeing him during the party now, before getting drunk, and then after.

“I was pretty out of it too, and I don't remember it all,” Josh says. “But I think he called you a desperate slut and said something about you not being that good of a lay.” Well that's not surprising at all, actually. “Lydia punched him and threw him out, after that.”

Not surprising either. That's something that Lydia would do. Anna's got to thank her for that later.

“You were asleep on the couch at that point,” Josh continues. “And I think that twenty minutes later, Pete offered to drop us off. Then we got here, I put you in my bed and slept in my brother's room, and voilà.”

It's a lot, but it's also... really reassuring to know things. Even if it makes the thing even uglier. How many people at that party heard that she's had sex with this piece of trash? Is she the campus slut now?

“Okay,” Anna says. “Thanks for telling me.”

Josh says nothing, so she figures it might be best to change the subject.

“Blue hair looks good on you,” she says.

“Ah, thanks,” Josh says, lifting a hand to his hair to curl a lock around his finger. “I'm thinking of getting a proper dye one of these days. My mom would be pissed, though.”

“I know that,” Anna says. “Mine would too.”

“You told me you wanted to shave your hair off yesterday,” Josh says. Anna's heart skips a beat, because that's true, but only in that state she could have said that. It's not that it's _that_ groundbreaking that a girl would want to get a buzzcut, it's that it implies other things about her that she doesn't want anyone to see, that _she_ doesn't even want to see.

“Yeah,” she says, trying to sound casual. “Again, my mom would kill me, so.”

“That sucks,” Josh says. “Tell me if you change your mind, though. I've got a hair clipper.”

Anna shrugs like that's never gonna happen, and it's not. Or maybe in a few years, when she lives on her own and her mother doesn't have to say anything about what she does, but even then, she doesn't know if she'd have the guts.

“It would look good on you, though,” Josh says.

Anna doesn't know if good is the right word. Better, maybe, closer to what she really is, but at the same time, it'd feel like reaching very hard for something she can't have, and wouldn't that be pathetic? That's why she won't do it.

“Thanks,” she tells Josh, and then they keep eating.

 

★

 

Anna realizes she knows this street when she gets out of Josh's house. Zack and her have biked through it a thousand times when they were kids, because there was this cool park that must have been not so far away from Josh's. It's only a ten, maybe fifteen minutes walk from her parents' place.

“Crazy that we live that close and never bumped into each other,” Josh says when she tells him about it. “We should hang out sometime. If you want to.”

“Yeah,” Anna says. She really wants to. It feels good to be around Josh. They've exchanged numbers and live really close to each other. It's something that could happen and it fills her with warmth.

Maybe they played together when they were kids. They're the same age ; it would make sense. Maybe they ran into each other when they were twelve. But Anna doesn't remember, and if that's the case, that probably mean that it didn't happen. Because if Josh was half what he is now, if he was already all warm smiles and freckles and kind words, Anna would have remembered.

Or maybe he was an ugly, shy kid like they all were, maybe they saw each other several times through the years and never talked because they never could remember.

It's comforting, somehow, to think about it like that.

 

★

 

“I wanted to do so much more than punch him, I swear,” Lydia says as she's looking at various tees. “That motherfucker.”

“It's really not that bad,” Anna says, a bit embarrassed about the whole thing because Lydia woulddn't have gotten upset and Josh wouldn't have had to take her home if she'd had the presence to control what she was drinking. “It's kinda true, what he said, anyway,” she adds. “It was me who was all over him.”

She hates it, but it's true. She remembers rutting against him in a corner, whispering dirty things into his ear. While he certainly was _very_ happy about it, he isn't guilty of anything, except maybe very bad sex and calling her a desperate slut. But then, Anna doesn't think he was wrong about that either. That's not something she'll tell Lydia, because then she'll get sad and angry that Anna thinks that poorly of herself, but it's true.

“I don't give a fuck,” Lydia says. “He treated you like shit. To be honest, I knew right from the beginning that he was an _ass_ – he's a guy in Gen's class, so I thought he would be alright, but even her said she won't talk to him after yesterday night.”

All that because of Anna. Great.

“What do you think of this one?” Lydia asks. The black shirt she's showing Anna has holes everywhere and an obscure logo on the front.

“Dope,” Anna says, thinking it even though she wouldn't wear it.

She wears for Lydia to try on the bunch of tees she's selected, and then they leave the Hot Topic with Lydia having bought only one of them.

“You haven't bought anything from any of the three shops we've been to,” Lydia says. “Do they even pay you at that coffee shop?”

“Hey, it's college money,” Anna says. “I just didn't feel like buying anything, that's all.”

They text Jenna as they're walking in the mall, vaguely looking for some other place to get in, but shopping is exhausting and they both could do with sitting down for a bit. Jenna calls them to say she will be there in fifteen, and suggests the smoothie shop that just oppened in the mall.

“Funny,” Anna says when they've hung up. “Brendon works there. I wonder if he's on a shift right now.”

“I hope he is,” Lydia says excitedly. “So we can get to know your fuckbuddy better.”

Anna rolls her eyes. “I never should have told you. Now you're gonna want the two of us to get _together_ together and it's _not_ gonna happen.”

“I didn't mean it like that!” Lydia protests. “It's just that he seems cool, and you like him. I just genuinely wonder how he is.”

And honestly, Anna too would like to know how Brendon is, really is. She's been hanging out with him for a while now, but she doesn't really know him except for where he works, the fact that he can sing like he can breathe, as well as some things she remembers from high school and that probably aren't relevant anymore anyway.

Like Anna thought, Brendon is working when Lydia and her get at the smoothie shop, joined by Jenna on the way. He's wearing the same bright blue tee with the shop logo on it as his co-worker, a small girl with her hair dyed bright orange.

“Hey, Anna!” Brendon exclaims when he sees her, his face brightening up.

Anna, Lydia and Jenna get closer to the counter.

“Jenna, Lydia, hi,” Brendon says. “How are you guys?”

“We just got done with shopping,” Lydia says.

“And I just joined,” Jenna adds. “Had to study, but it's nice to take a break.”

Studying. Anna hasn't really thought of that at all these days. She probably should before her grades get too bad.

She shakes off the thought before it dives in ; she doesn't need that kind of stress right now, with all that she's been dealing with. Whatever she's been dealing with.

“Aw, man,” Brendon says. “I wish I could take a break right now. I've been there since noon and it's Saturday, people come and go by dozens, it's crazy. It only just calmed down a bit.”

“You can take a break now if you want,” the orange-haired girl says. “I came by late and let you do all the work while I wasn't there, so it's only fair.”

Brendon's face brightens. “You're a saint and I don't deserve you, Hayley,” he says.

“You guys pick what you want and chose a booth over there,” Hayley says, smiling.

Brendon kisses Hayley on the cheek. The four of them chose what kind of smoothie to drink, then they head towards the booth.

 

★

 

“So, real talk,” Jenna says, sipping on her purple smoothie. “I talked to my parents about New Year's Eve. They're invited at a party out of town, and they said I can have the house as long as everything's clean when they come back.”

“Good, God, that's awesome,” Lydia sighs in relief, plastic cup in hand. Her drink is more of a peachy orange. “I was starting to think about trying to do something at my flat, but it's good that we get to have some place bigger!”

“Yeah,” Jenna says. “I'm counting on you to help me clean afterwards.”

“Scout promise,” Anna says, lifting her hand to show her point.

Jenna turns towards Brendon. “You're welcome to come, too, if you don't have anything planned,” she tells him, at Anna's surprise. Or it's not really a surprise, because Jenna's always been nice and outgoing, but still. “Bring a few friends, if you want to. It's a big house.”

Brendon seems to consider it. “I think my friends would be down for it, actually,” he says. “I mean, we were planning to either spend the evening the four of us or find somewhere to crash in, since none of us wants to host a big party, so... that would be pretty perfect.” Jenna and him smile at each other. “Thank you,” he says.

“We have to tell Josh to come too!” Jenna says like she's just thought about it. “You guys are pretty close, right?” Anna's about to say that no, they aren't close at all, when she realizes Jenna is adressing Lydia. Of course she is. Why would she ask Anna that? They've only seen each other two times. Even if one of those times included Josh wiping the vomit off Anna's face and letting her sleep in his bed.

“We're good friends, yeah,” Lydia nods. “I'll tell him to come.”

Anna realises, right there, how lucky she is. She doesn't have it all, sure, but she doesn't have a lot to complain about. Her family's a bit strict, but loving. She doesn't love her studies, but she gets to write music and lyrics on her free time, which is already a lot. She doesn't love working at the coffee shop and she'd rather do something else with her time, sure, but her boss is cool with her as long as she gets the job done and never showed any condescendance in two years of working there. And she has the best friends in the world, most importantly ; she keeps meeting people she doesn't deserve. Jenna's been her best friend since middle school, Lydia never showed anything but love and support since they met last year, Brendon is more caring and genuine with her than every guy she's slept with has been even though their arrangement doesn't go beyond sex, and now Josh, that she barely knows, manages to makes her feel lighter at the bare thought of him.

Not all people are this lucky. She knows that.

So why does she feel this empty all the time?

 

★

 

When Brendon asks Anna if she's going anywhere tonight, she decides that she's not to go back home tonight. She's still exhausted from the Halloween party, and still a little bit hungover, too, but she doesn't trust herself to be with her own thoughts today or any day, these times.

Lydia and Jenna leave shortly after finishing their smoothies, and Brendon gets back to work, but Anna decides to stay at her booth until he's done, asking him for another smoothie since she's there. She's technically as alone as she would have been at home, sure, but at least she won't be for long, and at least there's the reassuring sound of Hayley and Brendon's voices as they take the last orders of the day.

Brendon drives them to his place, after. They fuck as soon as they get here. Anna sucks his cock on the couch, then he fucks her on the floor. It's as hard as she likes it, and Brendon takes care of what needs to be taken care of, making her come over his dick as he empties himself on the condom, and good, that feels good. She had almost forgotten what good sex felt like.

They laugh when Brendon's stomach growls, and he gets up to fix them a quick dinner. Anna puts back her tee and panties, and after a while, gets up to join him in the kitchen. They eat there, Brendon sitting on the table and Anna on the counter, munching on five-minutes burritos made out of leftovers. It's not half bad, and Anna feels even better half an hour later, when their stomachs are filled and Brendon has rolled them a joint they're now sharing. It's been a good month or two she hasn't smoked weed. Last time was with Lydia, on the roof of their buildings. They spent the evening singing and smoking and drinking beer. She remembers closing her eyes at some point, thinking that she was happy. She was. Or she wasn't really, but at least it was before that thing inside of her started taking too much place, before she started feeling bad all the time but refusing to aknowledge why.

She's all relaxed, now, her legs lax where they lay in Brendon's lap. He's running his fingers on her calves, the body hair that's growing there. Anna usually doesn't shave in fall or winter, and Brendon doesn't mind, which she appreciates. Most guys do mind. She can feel her skin tingling where he touches it, but behind her neck, too. All the tension in her body is gone, but at the same time, she's hyper-aware of everything.

Brendon passes her the joint. They're talking about the last Harry Potter movie ; Brendon is making up theories about what's going to happen next, having not read the book.

Anna takes a drag. She takes a look at her own naked legs, at the hair poking out of her panties, at her chest that seems flat under her shirt in that position. If she had a cock in her underwear, one could mistake her body for a man's, right now.

For the first time, she admits to herself that she wants her body to looks like a man's. She's known that for a while, now, but it's the first time she formulates it in her own head.

For some reason, it's not quite right yet.

She finishes the joint and laughs at one of Brendon's jokes, then moves one of her legs so her feet is hovering above Brendon's crotch. He gives her a fake disapproving look, and his smile says that he's up to it, too.

“Again?” he says. “You're insatiable, Joseph.”

“You love it,” she says as she climbs on her lap, putting one leg on each side of Brendon's hips and already starting to grind against him slowly.

She doesn't take her shirt off. The hyper-awareness of her new found discovery of wanting to be a guy spreads, and now she understands why she's been looking at Brendon with lust, but also with envy, sometimes, why she's been eyeing guys she found attractive but didn't want to do anything to do with them, just wanted to experience the whole being a man thing. She tries to picture herself as a dude on top of Brendon. It's surprisingly easy. Even with Brendon's fingers moving under her panties now. Even if she doesn't have a dick. Once she's got it in mind, it's just easy.

They get around it slowly, less frantic than before, but it doesn't make it less intense. Anna grabs a condom and rolls it on Brendon's dick, then sinks down and just starts moving, rolling her hips in slow, deliberate moves. She's got a hand on Brendon's shoulder and another in his hair, his head burried in the crook of her neck. She still has her shirt on.

It doesn't get any faster than this, but the orgasm has them both shaking anyway.

“That was...” Brendon starts. He doesn't finish. Doesn't need to. _Intense. Fantastic. Mind-blowing._

“Yeah,” she sighs, catching her breath.

She rests her head on Brendon's shoulder for a bit, feels his hand running on her back. It feels soothing.

It's not the first time they do it high, far from that. It's not the first time they take it slow, and it's not the first time it leaves them with their arms and legs trembling either. But this is different.

“Can I borrow your shower?” she asks against his skin. “I don't like smelling of weed when I go to sleep, and I have to go to church tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Brendon says, then he scoffs, like he's just realized what Anna's said. “Church,” he says. “Sure you're fit for that?”

Brendon knows about Anna's religious upbringings, and doesn't make fun of it ; it's just that, like he once said, it's surprising, coming from her, because she isn't exactly your typical Christian girl scout. Anna shrugged and told him that it was not exactly like every Christian teen was the poster kid for abstinence. She knows Brendon was raised Mormon and went against it. He told his family shortly before moving out. She doesn't know if the two things are related.

“Probably not,” she whispers.

She wishes she could do that kind of thing. And she could, really, if she wasn't such a coward. It's not even that she doesn't believe in God, but she doesn't think she does in the same way that her parents do. She wishes she could go to them and tell them that. Tell them that she wants to drop out of college to make music, find a job, move out. Start looking more like a man.

She gets up from Brendon's lap, still feeling the ghost of Brendon's cock when it slips out of her.

“You're probably going to Hell,” Brendon says, smiling. His eyes are closed, his face blissful. “The both of us are.”

Anna smirks. It hits her more than it should, but it's not Brendon's fault. “

She doesn't take too much time in the shower. The warm feeling of the water running down her skin is nice, and she tries not to pay attention to her hair sticking on her back when she washes the shampoo away.

When she gets out, she wipes the mirror with her palm to see her face, and it's not the same thing that yesterday's at Josh's, where she felt scared and disgusted with herself. Her hair is slicked back, and she still hates her face, but it's like she knows what to do, now, like it's clear. Crystal clear.

 

★

 

When she joins her family at church the morning after, her mother is wearing that disappointed look on her face. She is technically okay with Anna going out as much as she wants as long as she isn't doing anything wrong, and Anna earned her trust by being a respectable teenager for years. She wouldn't even imagine that she is doing what she's doing now – getting drunk and fucking guys in toilets, or getting high and fucking guys on their couches. She still doesn't like it when she spends a night out without warning them beforehand, simply sending a text to say she's sleeping over at Lydia's or Jenna's. She won't tell them she's sleeping at a boy's, even if she skipped the part where the boy in question rams her on his mattress at least twice a week these days.

As she sits down in church, she notices someone a few feets away from her. Josh.

So they definitely have seen each other before, then. They're going to the same church ; they had to, at some point. Maybe they even bumped into each other and apologized. And it's funny, almost, that it lead to them meeting for real through Lydia, who is from California, at the weirdest time of Anna's life.

Josh turns around and sees her. They wave at each other and smile.

It's funny, really, because Anna doesn't understand how she would have forgotten that face, and she did, but Josh's in her life now, somehow.

They meet outside after service. Josh is wearing black jeans and a shirt. Anna had to drop by her house before all her clothing smelled like weed after going to Brendon's. He offered to lend her some clothes to wear, but Anna isn't sure that her parents would have been that happy to see their daughter in menswear on Sunday.

“Small world, huh”, Josh says, smirking.

“Small town,” Anna corrects. “How's it going since yesterday?”

“Oh, you know,” Josh says. “Nothing much. Went at the Guitar Center for my shift at two. Usual business. You?”

_Hung out with my friends. Banged my friend Brendon on his couch, twice. Had an epiphany._ “Made my mind about some things,” she says.

“Oh yeah?” Josh asks.

Anna smiles up at him. “You're still up to shave my hair?”

 


	3. Like the slightest thing could kill you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Let's try to update every week-end!", he said, right before disappearing for a month and a half. 
> 
> Sorry about that. I got caught up in finals. I'm done now, and about to be on holiday, so I hope I can update at least a little bit more often.
> 
> This story is very important me, and you guys sticking around and telling me that it's important to you means the world. Please keep telling me what you think in the comments if you feel like it, that would be very appreciated.

One day, Jenna told Anna that one of the biggest mysteries in her life was to understand why Anna was holding herself back that much.

“What do you mean?” Anna had asked.

“I mean that you never do what you want,” Jenna had said. “Never. It’s like – you act like the slightest thing could kill you. You won’t even buy a shirt you really want, because you’re scared your mom wouldn’t let you wear it, even if you know you could wear it in secret.”

And Jenna didn’t mean to be offensive, Anna knows that. And Anna didn’t get offended. But it hit her, in a way, because Jenna was right, and it was painful to face. Jenna was right.

Anna always held herself back, for everything. She never bought these shirts she wanted, never shopped at the men’s section even though Lydia sometimes does it and has no problem with that, never even thought about the actual possibility to make music for a living before joining college, because there was no way, no way. It took a while to understand why she did that, but now, she knows.

If she lets herself decide over one thing she really wants and do it, it becomes important. And if it’s important, it becomes all-consuming.

She’s decided she was gonna buzz her hair. She hasn’t backed off, and that is because it’s too late. Because it’s become important. The idea is in her head now, and she can’t make it go away. They’ve set a time with Josh (in two days, at his place), and she can’t _wait_. It’s important. She can’t see herself with long hair anymore, and she can’t wait for it to be gone. That’s why it’s dangerous when she doesn’t hold herself back.

Jenna was right, at the time, and Anna hadn’t known what to tell her. She honestly hadn’t known, and that’s what she had said.

“I don’t know,” she had said. “I’m just like that.”

Jenna had scratched her hair where her hand was resting on Anna’s head. They were watching cartoons on TV in Jenna’s room. “You should live a little,” Jenna had said. “You’d be happier. You know that?”

Jenna didn’t know what she was asking for. Anna probably didn’t either. She does now. She still won’t let herself think about some things, but she’s started giving importance to at least some of them, to at least the hair, and it’s an open door now. She doesn’t know if she can stop what’s inside of her from bursting out for a lot longer.

It’s fucking terrifying.

 

★

 

“You should cut your hair, Anna,” Anna’s mom says over dinner, looking thoughtful as she twirls spaghetti around her fork. “Not much, I mean – just the split ends.”

Anna nearly, _nearly_ laughs, but holds back. “Yeah,” she says after she’s swallowed the food in her mouth. “Actually, I’ve taken an appointment for tomorrow. I was thinking about getting it shorter than usual. For a change.”

“Oh, that can be nice too,” her mom says. “A change.”

“Please don’t,” Maddy says from over the table. “I wish I had long hair like you.”

“It will grow, don’t worry,” Anna says.

“Mom doesn’t want me to have it as long as yours because she says it already gets too tangled as it is and we would have to cut it because it would get too damaged anyway,” Maddy says. Anna remembers being twelve and being unable of doing what she wanted of herself because her mom or dad didn’t want to.

Not that it has changed that much.

“That’s because you don’t take care of it,” their mom says. “I’ll let you grow it when you’ll learn how to use a brush.” She looks back at Anna, then. “So, what are you thinking about? Just slightly shorter, or a bob? A bob would look nice on you.”

“I don’t know yet,” she says. “I’ll see when I get there, I think. I just want something new.”

“Can’t wait to see, then,” her mom says.

Anna smiles nervously, doing everything she can not to think about their reaction when she’ll come back from Josh’s, and failing.

It’s gonna be a fucking disaster.

 

★

 

The day after, Anna gets off work at four in the afternoon. She’s taken off her black and purple uniform to change back into her own clothes, which happen to include Josh’s shirt that he gave her last time she was at his place. She’s wearing it as a jacket, a layer between her hoodie and her coat, which she’s been doing a lot, recently. It feels nice, somehow. Josh’s told her that she could keep it, despite her insisting on giving it back, and she feels bad about it because it’s a nice shirt and Josh should keep it and who gives away their clothes to almost-strangers like that, but she can’t help but feeling a little content with it.

She gets in her car and throws her bag and coat on the passenger seat, then changes the CD in the car radio for a Green Day album. She starts driving to the sound of American Idiot banging in her car, her fingers tapping on the steering wheel when she stops at a traffic light. Her fingerless gloves don’t do much against the cold, and her hands are _freezing_.

It’s easy getting to Josh’s place, because it’s so close to her own. She just drives as she would to get to her parents’ place, but turns right before, at the park where Zack and her used to play when they were kids. She remembers trading Pokémon cards with the other kids from the neighbourhood. She’s written the beginning of a song about it.

It still baffles her that Josh wasn’t part of them. Zack and her would spend hours there, climbing on trees and on ladders and slides, a few feet away from Josh’s house.

A decade later, here she is : parking her car in Josh’s driveway, inviting herself into his home for him to cut his hair after so little time knowing each other. The little Anna in the park wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told her. She used to say she would never cut her hair, then spent the rest of her life wanting to but never daring, thinking she never would.

When she rings at the door, it’s not Josh who opens it, but a little red-haired girl. She looks a little bit younger than Maddy is, and she’s looking at Anna with questioning eyes.

“You’re Josh’s friend?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Anna says, nodding. “I’m Anna.”

“Ah,” the little girl says. “You can come in, then! Josh is downstairs. He’s playing drums in the basement. He told me to tell you to join him when you get there.”

“Oh,” Anna says. “Alright.”

She lets the little girl guide her towards the stairs that seem to go down the basement. The girl then goes back to whatever she was doing before Anna rang the door, her red hair floating behind her as she runs to the living room. As she gets down the stairs, the drumming sounds make themselves more clear. The room is probably soundproofed, though, because there would be no way Josh could play without filling the whole house with noise, otherwise. Anna hasn’t asked for the basement to get soundproofed, because piano and ukulele aren’t exactly noisy instruments, and she doesn’t even need a basement for that. She just plays in her room most of the time, hitting her keyboards and strumming her strings as she sings quietly, because she doesn’t want anyone to hear what she’s written, because her voice sounds alien to herself. Sometimes, her parents ask her to play something on the piano that’s on the living room, but she doesn’t sing, then. Plays Chopin or Beethoven so her mom can brag about it to the neighbours she’s invited, but doesn’t sing.

Anna opens the door to the basement and closes it behind her quickly. Her eyes wander around the room quickly, noticing a couch in the center, a TV, posters and flags on the wall, and then Josh, the source of the sounds, hitting the drums like his life depends on it. Anna can’t tell which song the drumming’s from, and you probably can’t do that without having the rest of the instruments unless you’re an actual drummer.

And God, Josh is. His whole body moves as he beats the shit out of his instruments, the muscles of his arms flexing and looking bigger as they move, his head banging to the sound, hair sweaty and sticking on his forehead.

It only takes a few seconds for him to notice Anna in the room, and it’s a good thing he does, because it would have been awkward if she had stood there watching him for whole minutes, but she can’t help being a little bit disappointed, because she would have liked to see more.

“Hey!” Josh exclaims, a huge smile on his face. “You’re here.”

“Yeah,” Anna says. She’s still a little bit shaken by what she just saw. It’s not that she didn’t expect Josh to be good. Just not that good. “You were great, just now,” she says a little bit awkwardly.

“Thanks,” Josh says, getting up to greet her.

“What song was it?” Anna asks.

“American Idiot,” Josh says.

Anna laughs. “I was listening to the album while driving here,” she explains.

Josh smiles, too, scoffs. “We must have a psychic link,” Josh says. “That, or it’s just because it’s a really famous song.”

“I like the psychic link theory better,” Anna says, smiling, as she leans over the wall. She takes a few seconds to better observe her surroundings. The posters on the wall are similar to the ones in Josh’s room, but fewer. The couch is orange and has a grey blanket laying on it. There’s a coffee table with an opened pack of popcorn on it as well as some DVDs and a few magazines that Anna assumes are about music, even if she can’t read the headlines from where she is.

“So, this is your hiding place?” she asks.

Josh takes a towel from a chair where he seems to keep everything he needs to have close to him when he’s drumming, including his phone, a bottle of hand lotion and another of water. “Kinda,” he says, wiping the sweat off his face. “Sorry I’m disgusting,” he says, laughing, before continuing. “My parents were ok with me having the basement if it meant they didn’t have to hear me playing drums. My brother and sisters have the attic for themselves, and Abby’s got the biggest room, so she can’t complain. Plus, I let her come here sometimes, when she’s nice.”

“Is Abby the little one?” Anna asks. “She opened the door for me.”

“That one, yeah,” Josh says. “She’s great. She’s a little monster, but she’s great.”

“She looks cool,” Anna says. “It’s an awesome basement,” she adds.

Josh opens the bottle on the chair and takes a few big gulps, almost emptying it. “You could come here if you wanna play,” Josh says. “We could try some stuff out. Together, I mean. If you need a drummer.”

Anna smiles. Were she to start a band, like she’s always dreamed to, she would need a drummer. “That would be nice,” she says. She’s answering to Josh, but also to her own thoughts. It would be nice to start a band, but she can’t let herself give it too much thought, or it will become important too.

It already is, but she can still pretend she doesn’t know that if she shuts the idea off as soon as it’s popped into her mind everytime it does.

“So,” Josh says, running a hand through his sweaty hair to get it out of his face. “Your hair. We should get to it.”

Anna runs a hand to her own hair as a habit. It’s probably the last time she’ll be able to do that before a while. Maybe she won’t get to do it ever again. She won’t miss the long hair, that she’s sure of, and therefore she doesn’t know if she’ll let it grow that long ever again. Longer than a buzzcut, sure. Probably, actually. But she doesn’t know if she can’t stand the sight of herself with long strands around her face again.

“Yeah,” she says.

“Let’s get upstairs,” Josh says, and Anna follows him as he opens the door and takes the stairs. “We can do that in the bathroom. I mean, it seems like the most convenient place, right? I don’t have a mirror in my room.”

“It’s gonna be a mess,” Anna says. “I’ll clean up, don’t worry about that, but – I could have done that at home. It sucks that it’s your bathroom that’s gonna be covered in hair.” Anna knows it’s a little bit of a lie. She wouldn’t have had it in her to do it in her parents house, because that would have meant facing them right after, feeling guilty on the moment, and she already has enough of that. And she knows her mother would have been even more insufferable on the subject if she happened to find some hair on the tiles months later.

“I’ll help you clean up, don’t worry,” Josh says. “There won’t be anything left.”

In the bathroom, Josh pulls out the hair clipper from the drawer under the sink. Anna’s already used one. They have one at home, and Zack prefers it when it’s her that trims his hair, because his mom always leaves it either too long or buzzes it too short. She’s never had it touch her head, though.

“Do you want me to help or do you want to do this alone?” Josh asks as he gets the clipper out of the box. His eyes are concerned and kind.

“I think –” Anna starts. “I think I’d rather do it myself.” It’s mainly because she’s probably gonna cry. She knows herself.

Josh nods. He hands her the clipper. Anna hates herself for how her hand trembles as she takes it. It’s just _hair_ , for fuck’s sake.

It shouldn’t be important.

It _is_ important.

Josh gets out of the bathroom after handing Anna a pair of scissors and a plastic bag for the hair, smiling at her as he puts a comforting hand on her shoulder, then telling her she can call him if she needs anything. He closes the door behind him, and Anna stares at it for a while before letting her eyes look at the hair clipper in her hands, then at the reflexion in the mirror.

She probably should get some length out of the way before she actually proceeds to buzz it.

She puts the clipper down, takes the scissors, and looks at herself one last time as she takes a large strand of hair between her fingers. She’s gotta do this quick, she thinks. Not think about it too much. Like pulling off a band-aid. There’s a lot of hair in the part she’s holding, and there’s no way she could be able to keep the rest long if she freaks out.

No coming back possible. That’s good.

She inhales sharply, and cuts.

She probably shouldn’t let the hair fall down as it’s been cut ; it would be easier to put it down in the trash can directly. But there would be mess anyway, and Anna doesn’t really think the way she usually does as the scissors reach another part of her hair. It doesn’t become easy after the first one. It’s still terrifying, but thrilling, also, because there she is, doing what she wants with herself, caring what people will think but doing it it anyway. There she is, at last.

Soon, the longest hair that remains on her head barely reaches past her nape. It’s a terrible haircut, but it’s not gonna stay anyway. Her reflection doesn’t look like anything she’s known of herself in almost nineteen years of life. It gives her strength as she plugs the hair clipper and turns it on. The buzzing sound resonates into her ears as she brings the machine closer to her head.

It doesn’t seem that scary when she buzzes a first part of her head. It is, but it’s mostly liberating. The little hair that remains gets stuck in the clipper, and she’s got to stop to take it off before going on. Anna starts to see the skin on her skull beneath the half inch of hair that remains on her head, a sight she’s never had before. She runs a hand at the back of her head, then manages to get the clipper there, making sure there’s nothing left. She only truly looks at he full face when she’s done. She doesn’t know if she starts crying at the sight or if she already was crying before.

But it’s not sad. She’s not sad as she rubs her head, almost bare now, only covered by short hair, with her hand. It feels soft under her palm. It’s shorter than any of her brother has ever had it, and she never thought she’d find herself in that position ; crying in front of the mirror at Josh’s house, feeling her new self up, watching a new person in the mirror and crying more and more.

She wipes her face with the hem of her grey hoodie. It’s covered in hair. It probably would have been smarter to take it off. She looks at her feet. Years of hair are on the floor, and when she looks at it, she doesn’t feel regret. Not at all.

She gathers the mess she’s made on the floor and puts it in the plastic bag. She laughs a bit at the absurdity of it, at the fact that it’s looking a little bit like she’s gonna keep that hair, as if it was someone else’s and she had a fetish or something, when it’s actually just so Josh’s parents and siblings don’t wonder about how the fuck that ended up in the bathroom bin. She cleans up as much as she can, but the room probably needs vacuuming, and even then Ana worries there’s still gonna be remnants months later.

She ties the bag and gets back up. She gives herself one last look in the mirror, and then she gets out of the bathroom.

She still doesn’t recognize herself, but she thinks she likes this version at least a little bit more. It’s weird how something can be so small and yet so big.

“Oh my gosh,” Josh says when Anna enters his room. She still has the plastic bag in her hand. It must look a little bit odd.

“Ta-dah,” she says, smiling just a little.

“You look amazing,” Josh says as he gets up. “You mind if I touch?” he asks. “Shit, that sounded weird.”

“Nah, I don’t mind if you do,” Anna says. “It’s soft. I like touching it too.”

Josh runs a hand through Anna’s now so short hair. “It _is_ soft,” he says. “I’ve been wanting to get a mohawk for a while now. This might just convince me.”

“Mohawk and a blue dye?” Anna asks, raising an eyebrow.

“A blue hawk,” josh says. “I won’t do it, though. Not before I get my own place. My parents would freak out on me, and I don’t have the strength for that kind of thing right now.”

“Tell me about it,” Anna says, rolling her eyes. “I can’t _wait_ to go home and get dishonored by my entire family.” She says it a joke, but now that it’s done, the anxiety is starting to kick in. She hadn’t missed it.

“At least one of us had the balls to do what they wanted to do,” Josh says. His hand is still resting on the top of Anna’s head.

“Who would have thought it was me?” Anna says.

Who would have thought?

 

★

 

“What the _heck_ were you _thinking_?!”

It’s what she expected, so she shouldn’t be upset about it. Her mom was never going to be kind about it, she knew that.

She’d still rather not be there right now. There, in the living room, with mom yelling at her as Anna’s sitting on the couch, trying to keep her head up and stand for herself, and her dad sitting on the other couch, giving her disapproving looks even though he, at least, is not yelling.

“I just felt like it,” Anna says, shrugging. Both the sentence and the gesture are probably the most insolent things she could come up with, and while she didn’t pick them on purpose, it still feels a little bit good. She thinks about Jenna telling her about how she thought Anna was holding herself back too much, how it looked like the slightest thing could kill her. She’s not doing that now, and it’s new, and it’s good. As if having finally done something for herself is now giving her strength for all the rest. Is that it? All it took was that? God, she should have buzzed her head an eternity ago.

“You just _felt_ like it,” Anna’s mom repeats, outraged. “You just _felt_ like shaving your entire hair off for the sake of it. Did you even think about how it would look like or did you do it just for the thrill of it? Or maybe you just wanted to look like a thug. What’s next? Gang tattoos and piercings?”

“It’s just goddamn hair, Mom,” Anna says. She must sound mostly tired at this point, despite the argument having been going on for only a few minutes. She skips the part where she is probably gonna get tattoos one of these days, yes, because that would only make things worse and she’s already being provocative enough. Being insolent is one thing, but bringing more shit on herself is another, and she isn’t stupid.

“What your mom is trying to say,” Dad says, and Anna hates when he does that as much as he hates her mom yelling, when her dad acts all calm and diplomatic as if he was the smartest in the room when he just don’t know how to handle the situation, “is that it was just not a very wise choice. It’s a big change, Anna. And it’s not exactly a good one.”

“Alright, maybe you don’t like it,” Anna says, “but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. It’s just not your taste, I hear that and I’m not gonna try to make you love it, but that’s what I wanted. That’s all.”

“ _That’s all_ ,” Mom repeats, again. “That’s all, really? You look like you’ve just gotten out of prison.”

“Jeez, Mom, it’s just hair!” Anna says. “I’m not gonna start dealing drugs because I shaved it! It’s a haircut! I wanted short hair, so I got short hair! That’s all there is! It’s not like it’s never gonna grow back anyway!”

Not that she intends on growing it long again. A bit longer than this, maybe ; she wants to experiment short haircuts. But not long.

“You look like a thug,” Mom says again.

“I don’t,” Anna says.

“You look like a boy,” Mom says.

A _thanks_ nearly escapes Anna’s mouth, but she doesn’t say it. It’s too much, even for her.

“What’s so bad about that?” is what she goes for instead. For her mom, it’s just as bad, probably. “Look,” she says before her mom can say anything else. “It’s just hair. It was important for me to get it short. I felt uncomfortable with long hair, so I just did this radical thing, and yeah, it’s a bit crazy, but it’s _just hair_.”

“If it’s just hair, why was it so important to you?” Dad asks.

“Because it’s me,” Anna says. “I get to choose what I look like.”

“And you want to look like a freak?” Mom spits.

 _Touché_.

Suddenly, she can’t think of how she managed to stand up for herself the whole time, and it’s as Jenna said all over again. _Like the slightest thing could kill you_. It’s a word killing her now. A little word, and she feels small again. Which she is.

She gets up.

“Is that what you think I am?” She asks. “A freak?”

She’s angry, mostly. Small as she’s always been, but angry.

“You look like one,” Mom said. “And honestly, Anna, I don’t know what to think.”

She’s about to burst into tears, and maybe she should. Maybe Mom would understand, then, how her words are knives, how they hurt her. Maybe she would take everything back. She wouldn’t, though, even if Anna cried. She wouldn’t have said those things in the first place if she was that understanding. Anna wishes she was understanding, and really there is nothing to understand. It’s just hair. And if only her parents knew what was really going on inside of her, it would be ten times that catastrophe. Because she really is a freak, and they don’t know that yet, whatever Mom says. They can’t know, because even her refuses to know. She can’t let herself know, no matter how important it’s becoming, no matter how many things she’s let herself think about.

She can’t cry in front of them.

She doesn’t answer, then, just turns around and climbs the stairs. Surprisingly enough, her mom doesn’t call her back. Even her must know that this conversation isn’t gonna bring anything new to the table now. The conversation isn’t over, though ; Anna knows her mother better than that.

She only cries when she reaches her room, quiet sobs escaping her mouth as she leans against the door and lets herself fall until she’s sitting against the wood.

She was supposed to feel better now. And really, she does. The buzzcut hair feels more right than anything has ever felt on her body. She wishes it wouldn’t be ruined by all of that mess. She wishes it wasn’t so hard to just be herself.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket, as it’s been for a while now. She hasn’t checked her phone since she got home, too busy being called a freak.

She can’t bring herself to pull it out of her pocket and answer yet. The word keeps resonating into her head.

Freak, freak, _freak_.

 

★

 

“Oh my _God_ ,” Lydia exclaims. “You look _so_ cool!”

“I can’t believe you did this,” Jenna says, smiling. “You look absolutely stunning. It’s just - a little bit crazy.”

“Yeah, it is,” Anna says. “I still can’t believe I did it. I keep being surprised at my reflexions in windows.”

“Bet you are,” Lydia says.

“I’ve gotta step up my game now,” Jenna says. “You two are too cool. I’ve gotta do something with my hair soon or I’ll just look ridiculous.”

“You’re the prettiest girl in town,” Lydia says. “I think it makes up for the lack of crazy hair.”

“Smooth move, Night,” Jenna says with a smile. Anna rolls her eyes. She considers herself lucky to have friends that are comfortable enough with their sexuality to playfully flirt with each other from time to time. A lot of girls do that but get weird when anything around her actually gets gay, which is pretty hypocritical and kind of homophobic too. Lydia is a lesbian, so she wouldn’t have that kind of problem, but it would have been easy for a girl like Jenna, someone’s who’s straight and from a Christian upbringing, to be weird about it. It would have been easy for Anna, too. Because she’s straight too. Of course.

“Oh, yeah, Anna, this is Alex,” Lydia says, gesturing at a girl that just sat down next to Anna. “Who took an awful time in the bathroom, by the way.” She’s got short hair that’s been dyed a bright red and a nose piercing. Lydia had mentioned a friend from California coming over for the week to check up the classes for next year. Anna thinks she remembers the friend in question being a guy, but she was wrong, apparently, and yeah, whatever. She looks way too cool to hang out with someone like Anna, but it makes sense that she’s friends with Lydia. Sometimes Anna really wonders what the hell Lydia sees in her. Or Jenna, for that matter. They’re both too cool.

“It’s short for Alexander,” Alex says, and Alexander is a boy’s name, isn’t it, and oh. “Nice to meet you.”

It clicks into place, then. Anna is not stupid. Lydia had mentioned a guy because Alex is a guy, and Alex is making sure that Anna gets it by giving her his full, masculine name, because Alex is. Well.

“Anna,” she says, hoping it doesn’t sound too awkward. “Nice to meet you.”

They get out of the coffeeshop and start walking to class. They walk for a while before they have to part ways to get to their respective courses, and Anna absent-mindedly follows the conversation they’re having, Jenna asking Alex what he thinks of Columbus (not much, honestly, but who can blame him, there’s not much to think anyway), how much he is staying (until saturday night, then he’s got a flight back to California), how he met Lydia (at a party they were both too young to be at, especially him, since he’s two years  younger). They get to the point where Anna has to turn left to join her English Literature class. She waves at them as she takes the right path, and Jenna says something about meeting up for coffee tomorrow.

She doesn’t manage to focus on whatever the teacher is speaking about during English Lit, and it keeps going after that, in French. She just keeps getting lost in her thoughts and having to snap herself back into reality only to hear words that don’t even make sense. It happens way more often that she’d like to, but this time, her thoughts imply all the things she’s been holding herself from thinking about these last months, but in a concrete form. The concrete form being Alex. Alex, who is transgender.

She hasn’t even allowed herself to think about the word, even though she knew it. Formulating it in her head is scary, because it makes her think that Alex and her might not be very different.

She can’t think about that.

At work, she spills coffee on herself once and breaks a glass twenty minutes after that.

“Are you alright?” asks Gary, the manager, when he sees she’s on the verge of tears. Gary’s a nice guy. He’s tried to hit on Anna a time or two despite being ten years older than her, but he got the memo pretty quickly, at least, and he’s been mostly kind to her since she’s started working here last year. He didn’t even say anything about the shaved head, which is a miracle in itself. He actually did say something, but it was a compliment.

“Yeah,” Anna says. “I’m fine, I’m - sorry about the mess, I’ll clean it up, just give me a minute -”

“You’ve been looking a bit off these days,” Gary says.

“I’m fine, I promise, I’m gonna get it together -”

“Look, Anna,” Gary says, trying to sound as soft as possible, probably. “I think it might be better for you to go home tonight.”

“No, I’m sorry, I’ll do better,” Anna says. “Please.”

“I’m not firing you,” Gary says. “Or saying you’re doing a bad job. Well, you kind of are, right now, but you’ve never disappointed me, and you work hard. I know it’s not up to you. Just go home, and try to sleep a little bit more for your wednesday shift, ok?”

Anna gives in and nods. The thing is she hasn’t been able to have a peaceful night of sleep in what feels like forever. She does sleep, but it’s always after crying, and when it’s not that, she takes ages managing to fall asleep because of all the overthinking. And it’s not like it’s getting better, not like it’s gonna get better with the thing about Alex and herself and whatever.

Her mom called her a freak, and she’s giving her a reason to think she’s right. As Anna’s driving back home, being as careful as she can despite her current mental state, she thinks about how hypocritical of her it is to think of herself and her friends being open-minded. She hates herself for thinking the idea of being trans is something bad, and really, she doesn’t think of Alex as a freak. She doesn’t know him. She only thinks that of herself, and refuses to acknowledge whatever she’s feeling as being related to something Alex, or some other people are, because it would be too late then. She would really be a freak.

God, she hates herself for thinking that. But it isn’t her fault, though ; you’d just have to look at her parents to see. She was raised that way.

Anna manages to sneak into the house without being noticed, which is good. Her mom would have asked why she left work early, and she can’t tell her it’s because she was having a breakdown over her own identity. Now that she thinks about it, she should probably have found some place in town to crash at until her shift was supposed to be over. She didn’t really think this through.

She should probably get out of the house. She could be discreet about it and not get noticed ; it worked when she got in.

She does the first thing that comes to mind and texts Josh.

_You: you wanna hang out? I have to get out of my house_

She feels a little bit dumb about it as soon as she presses the send button. She doesn’t know Josh that well, after all, but he’s the closest person around, physical distance wise, so it’s easier reaching out to him, and also, he let her use his bathroom to shave her hair knowing it was important for her. That must mean something, right?

Anna’s phone buzzes in her hand quicker than she thought, and then it buzzes again.

_Josh: sure, meet you in the park in my street in 10?_

_Josh: bring your ukulele (if you want) :)_

Anna smiles.

_You: will do :)_

 

★

 

Being out in a deserted park without her parents knowing is something Anna’s never done, and to be honest, never thought she would be doing. Not that it’s that rebellious and impressive now ; she’s of age, she can do whatever she wants to, but apparently her mother thinks she has something to say about everything in her life since she still lives in her house.

It’s not that even that late, probably around six or seven according to when she left work, but it was already dark outside when she got there at five. Winter is definitely there as they’re one day away from December and fuck, it’s cold. Anna’s got a hoodie on the top of a sweater and her big coat on, and she’s still shivering. She’s put fingerless gloves on, which is kind of useless when you think about it, but she wouldn’t be able to play ukulele with proper gloves, so.

Josh was visibly there before she arrived, despite Anna snuck out of the house as soon as she got the text. She managed to go unnoticed again, and her car is parked a little bit further away from her place, so hopefully nobody will get that she was there in the first place.

“Hey,” Anna says as she step towards Josh. “Sorry I asked you to go out with me. So suddenly, I mean.”

Josh is sitting on a swing in the small playground part of the park. It hasn’t changed at all since Anna was a kid. It’s weird seeing it now, as a somewhat adult, in what feels like the middle of the night but really is a dark late winter afternoon.

“No worries,” Josh says as Anna sits on the swing next to him. She fits there, but she’s at the limit. She pushes herself a little bit, swinging just a little, her ukulele in hand. “It kind of felt oppressing to be at my place anyway.”

“Yeah?” Anna says.

“Yeah,” Josh says. “Nothing bad, though. It’s just my whole family can be a little bit much sometimes. You’d think I’d have gotten used to live with a lot of siblings, but sometimes it gets a little bit too noisy, and like, as soon as something happens, everyone feels like they have to be involved and it just becomes a big mess.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Anna sighs, and Josh laughs.

“You wanna play something?” Josh says, eyeing the ukulele.

Anna unzips the little case protecting the instrument. She remembers getting it and thinking it was so tiny, compared to the guitar she was used to play. “I can do I’m Yours, if you want,” she says. “You sing?”

“Not that much, but I can,” Josh says. “I’ll harmonize.”

Anna smiles, and then she starts playing. It’s quiet all around them except for the sound of cars passing from time to time, and all that can be heard is the simple strumming of Anna’s fingers on the ukulele and their voices harmonizing on the chorus, singing _but I won’t hesitate, no more, no more_ . Josh’s voice is soft and sweet as it merges with Anna’s, and for some reason, she feels like this is a defining moment in her life. She closes her eyes as they sing, capturing the moment. Making it home. Playing music does that to her, makes her at peace, but this is different. It’s the moment, and it’s Josh, it’s the fact that she’s not playing alone, it’s the feeling that Josh understands her better than anybody despite them barely knowing each other. It’s the fact that she’s not feeling so alone anymore, it’s feeling home, and maybe like she can allow herself to be what she really is, for the first time in her life. _Look into your heart and find that the sky is yours_ , they sing.

“That sounded good,” Josh says when they’re done. He gets out a cigarette pack of his pocket and offers Anna one. So he does smoke a little bit, then. She accepts, then, even if she never smokes. Nothing more than a little bit of weed with Brendon from time to time, anyway. “I think we’re pretty great,” Josh says, lighting his cigarette then handing Anna the lighter.

“We are,” Anna says, glad they’re on the same page. “We should do that more.”

She lights her own smoke then, and then stay in silence for a couple minutes. It isn’t as awkward as Anna would have thought. It’s like they’ve been with each other forever.

“I’m gonna be nineteen tomorrow,” Anna says then, breaking the silence. The ukulele is at her feet, resting on the case where she moves her legs to keep swinging just a little. She doesn’t know why she says it, but she knows what she’s gonna say next. She is terrified.

Maybe it’s time to stop being scared. Maybe she can tell it to Josh. They’ve got something, right? They’ve got something special.

The moment is still going on. It still feels like home. If she misses it, it will be gone. She might as well say her piece now.

“Oh,” Josh says. “Happy almost-Birthday. I’ll send you a text at midnight.”

Anna smiles. She doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t dare doing this much.

“I’ve spent nineteen years of my life not living it as I really should,” Anna says. “I’ve never let myself be - myself. And it’s only occured to me recently that I’m not who I’m supposed to be.”

The cigarette burns at the tip of her fingers. She brings it back to her lips, finishing it, before bending over to crush the butt in the slightly wet send. Josh is looking at her, silent. She can feel his look on her face.

“I think -” she begins. “I think I’m a guy.”

She’s looking at her feet, and the ukulele, and the cigarette but. She doesn’t feel like crying this time. She feels ; relieved. Like she thought she was gonna die. Like the smallest thing could have killed her.

“I’ve always known, deep down, I think,” she continues. “Maybe not that, but that I was not allowed to be myself. And I know it’s that, now. That, and other things. And it took me so long to finally - allow myself to even think about it. But it’s what I am, and you can’t deny what you are forever, you know?”

And that means she can talk calling herself a _she_. That means he can be himself. That means it has changed, now that he’s said it.

“I know,” Josh says. His voice is soft and gentle. Anna looks at him, and there’s only kindness on his face. Suddenly, he realizes Josh could have had a bad reaction, but maybe Anna didn’t think about that at all because he knew Josh wouldn’t mind, because why would he? It’s Josh. He’s kindness incarnate. “I am - _so happy_ for you that you’ve found yourself. You have no idea.”

“You don’t think it’s messed up?” Anna asks.

“No,” Josh says. “Why would I? Some people are trans, and that’s none of anyone’s business.”

Anna could cry now. He didn’t want to before, but this is getting a bit much, and he’s always been emotional.

“Are you gonna change your name?” Josh asks. “A lot of people do that, I think. Not that you have to.”

“I’ve thought about names,” Anna says, because of course he did. He’s thought about names he liked and listed them and stopped on one in particular, not because it was the most beautiful one but it just felt right, and he convinced herself it was not for that reason, but it was. “I like Tyler,” he says.

“Tyler,” Josh says, taking a drag and inhaling the smoke. “It’s a cool name.”

And Tyler ( _Tyler, T-y-l-e-r_ ) is looking at his face this time, and Josh is smiling. His face is beautiful. Tyler only takes a grasp of it now, because he’s always found Josh beautiful, but something is somehow different now.

And the moment hasn’t stopped yet.

He’s still home.


End file.
